Bicyclists on the road are at very high risk from getting hit by other vehicles due to their near invisibility to the other vehicle drivers on the road, bicyclists are at higher risks even than motorcyclists as motorcyclists due move with traffic speed wise and have built in always on head and tail lights which reduces the risks of a motorcyclist getting hit by a vehicle due to better light visibility and moving at parity with traffic flow.
Thus for the bicyclist being almost invisible is compounded by the fact that the bicyclist is moving considerably slower than traffic flow speed wise and accelerating through and clearing intersections much more slowly than other traffic, meaning that the other traffic must see and wait for the bicyclist to clear the intersection to avoid a collision.
Some detail on the specific road risks to bicyclists;
1. Intersections—as most motorists typically only look one way (toward oncoming traffic) prior to turning right or left, the bicyclist will seemingly come out of nowhere in their turning path risking a collision, as this is especially compounded by the bicyclist using the sidewalk (or intersection crosswalk) or being on the extreme right side of the road both of which the vehicle driver is not looking at. Further, this same scenario would apply to side driveways, alleyways, and where the motorist is crossing straight through an intersection.2. Car doors and drivers exiting or entering cars parking along the right side of the street, again if the bicyclist is riding on the right side of the street to avoid being too close to the cars going by on the bicyclists left side, the bicyclists is riding close to the parked cars on the street, thus a collision can occur as the car driver is not looking for or expecting the bicyclists cutting close by their driver's side door or a collision with the driver themselves.3. Juxtapose risk—if car traffic is at lower speed (i.e. the bicycle is at parity with the car speed wise) or stopped at a red light or stop sign—the bicyclist is positioned directly adjacent to the side of the car—typically the car driver does not see the bicyclist as the car driver looks only ahead through their windshield and glances at the rear view mirrors—which the bicyclists being directly next to the car is in the car driver's “blind spot” and the car driver could easily make a right or left turn right into the bicyclist causing a collision.
Of course the bicyclist's invisibility is even worse at night and statistically almost one-half of the bicycle deaths are at night even though almost all bicycle riding is done in the daytime. Motorists are only used to seeing other cars which of course have much larger profiles or silhouettes than bicycles, further at night cars have their headlights and tails lights spaced apart the width of the car, which in a sense helps another motorist judge whether a car is coming or going and at what rate the car is coming or going via the apparent distance change between the car light sources (from car light source angle change through distance changes), i.e. the ability to ascertain the stroboscopic effect of depth perception which adds greatly to figure out the car's positional relation to the motorist and the rate of change of the car's position.
As an example, as a car approaches a stationary positioned individual (on the side of the road) from the front of the car, the cars headlights appear to get closer together due to the individual's viewing angle change as the car gets closer to the individual, and conversely as the rear of the car moves away from the individual, the tail lights appear to move apart.
Now moving to the bicycle, even with a bicycle headlight and a tail light—we have basically a single point of light reference to the stationary positioned individual, wherein a single point of light—no matter how bright the light is, being very difficult for the stationary positioned individual to ascertain whether the light is coming or going and at what rate the light is coming or going in relation to the stationary positioned individual, thus the result is that the single point of light is not effectively telling of its change of position to the stationary positioned individual.
Thus this is one of the reasons that the single bicycle headlight and tail light are not very good at adding to the bicyclist's visibility, although certainly the single bicycle headlight and tail light are better than no lights, they are not effective for judging distance and the rate of change of that distance, plus motorists are used to other cars having the spaced apart headlights and tail lights being what the motorists will most likely recognize, especially at night.
Thus an improved solution is to make the bicycle appear at night like a car—i.e. with multiple spaced apart sources of light—not only is there the benefit of more lights, but more importantly the multiple light apparent positional relationship to one another enables the motorist to better ascertain if the bicyclist is approaching them or moving away from them, and at what rate. The bicycle helmet is an excellent place to add lighting for several reasons—the increased height above the road (in relation to bicycle headlights and tail lights)—the higher the light from the road the more visible the light is to the motorist—in fact automotive taillights have gotten considerably higher from the road in the last 50 years—as a proven simple way to be more visible and reduce collisions, also the bicyclists head is constantly moving which means that the helmet lights are constantly moving, further adding to visibility to the motorist.
Statistically bicycle riding is dangerous with the death rate about four times as high as motorists per mile traveled, recently in the United States there are just under one-thousand (1,000) bicycle accident deaths and about fifty-thousand (50,000) bicycle accident injuries for the year in available data from 2014 according to the NHTSA and CDC.
Thus the prior art recognizes these issues with various apparatus and devices that assist the individual in being recognized in an integral helmet lighting system, looking at U.S. Pat. No. 8,608,333 to Lombard, wherein disclosed is a helmet including a lighting system permanently integrated into the helmet, the lighting system comprising: a first layer; light emitting means mounted to the first layer, wherein the light emitting means are light emitting diodes; a controller means mounted to the first layer for controlling the light emitting means.
Also included in Lombard is a wiring means for linking the light emitting means to the controller means; a second layer fixably attached to the first layer thereby providing an area between said first and second layer for the light emitting means forming a lighting chamber channel on the outer shell of the helmet, a controller means, and a wiring means.
Further in Lombard is a power means fixably attached to the second layer for powering the controller and light emitting means; and an operating means functionally linked to the controller means for operating the controller means; wherein the operating means is functionally linked to a signaling device.
Lombard limits itself to either being integral to the helmet or having a fixed fitted shell to an existing helmet, see Lombard FIGS. 3, 4, 6, and 11, although with the numerous helmet sizes and shapes in existence it would be difficult to imagine the Lombard apparatus fitting well or looking professional in appearance, and further the need to completely cover the helmet in LEDs is questionable for safety reasons wherein external visibility in only needed laterally in an omnidirectional manner and an excessive number of LEDs adds unnecessary cost and higher electrical power drain on the power supply thus shortening the illumination time. In addition in Lombard, the lighting chamber channel adds undesirable weight and bulk to the helmet while of being of dubious benefit for external lighting recognition.
Continuing in the prior art for the illuminating helmet arts in United States Patent Application Number 2016/0150844 to Das, disclosed is an illuminating helmet cover configured to attach with a helmet, such as a motorcycle helmet, bicycle helmet, construction helmet, or the like. The illuminating helmet cover in Das includes a plurality of illuminating elements, such as light-emitting diodes, lamps, or reflective surfaces, which allow a user to be more easily visible, wherein the plurality of illuminating elements are coupled with one or more strands that are configured to extend over the helmet, such as in the form of a netting.
The illuminating helmet cover in Das fastens to the helmet via one or more coupling components, such as clamps, hooks, adhesives, Velcro, etc. A power source in Das is connected with the one or more strands for providing power to one or more of the plurality of illuminating elements with operation of the plurality of lights able to be customized by the user, for example, by changing colors, strobe patterns, and/or brightness or intensity. While Das maybe interchangeable with different helmet sizes and shapes the Das lighting net does not easily attach/detach from the helmet, plus there would be questions of durability and style of the lighting net for the helmet user.
Further in the illuminated helmet prior art in United States Patent Application Number 2013/0201664 to Harooni, disclosed is a partial ring of LED lights integrated into the bottom facing base surface of a bicycle helmet that, when on provides a bright illumination directed downwards away from the bottom base of the helmet with focused and directed light rays. In this configuration in Harooni, when the helmet is worn by a bicycle rider, the downwards direction of the light produced by the partial LED light ring serves to brightly illuminate the rider, the bicycle, and the ground road surface below in low light or nighttime conditions.
The light thus produced in Harooni by this invention serves to illuminate not forwards or backwards but the moving subject itself and directly, making the moving subject highly visible to approaching vehicles or other moving subjects, however, causing added bulk to the helmet rim thickness, see FIG. 2, and further making for a special integrated helmet thus not being an interchangeable system for existing helmets. Harooni has a lack of a physical structure teaching as to the LED light apparatus system and merely discloses a functional concept of directing light downward over the bicycle rider onto the surface for visibility, which could conceivably interfere the bicycle rider's forward night vision due to the brightness of the helmet LEDs on the rider's eyes.
Continuing in the prior art in the illuminated helmet arts in U.S. Pat. No. 8,070,307 to Ho disclosed is a light-emitting warning device of a safety helmet, comprising: a helmet main body, an annular locating groove and a receiving cavity being formed on an outer face of the helmet main body, the locating groove having two end sections in communication with or adjacent to the receiving cavity; a light guide element, which is an elongated flexible strip body with light guiding property, the light guide element being received in the locating groove, two end sections of the light guide element extending into the receiving cavity, the light guide element being at least partially exposed to outer side of the locating groove; and a light source control mechanism having at least one internal light source body.
Also included in Ho is at least one control switch, by means of the control switch, a state of electric connection between the light source body and a power source being variable, whereby when the light source body is turned on, the light source body projects light into the end sections of the light guide element that extend into the receiving cavity, wherein the receiving cavity communicates with the locating groove via at least one through hole formed in the helmet main body such that the through hole extends from the receiving cavity to the locating groove, and the through hole is formed in a middle section of the locating groove in communication with an interior of the helmet main body. In Ho, a special helmet is required, see Ho FIGS. 3, 4, and 5 to receive the light guide element that is a light reflecting tube into an annular locating groove, thus there is no interchangeability of helmets possible with the Ho light guide element.
Further, in the helmet illumination arts in U.S. Pat. No. 7,695,156 to Hurwitz disclosed is an illuminated helmet, comprising: an interior cushion; an outer translucent shell including side, back, front and top walls to cover the entire helmet, the outer shell having a plurality of transparent displays and opaque sections dispersed on each of said walls of the outer shell so that a substantial portion of said outer shell is covered with the transparent displays; plus an electroluminescent light source with an electroluminescent sheet is provided and located between the interior cushion and the outer shell positioned under the transparent displays for emission of light through the plurality of transparent displays of the walls of said outer shell.
In Hurwitz, the electroluminescent sheet substantially covering the entire outer surface of the interior cushion and being aligned with the transparent displays to provide omnidirectional illumination to the illuminated helmet, see Hurwitz FIGS. 3a and 3b. Also in Hurwitz, a battery being connected to an inverter for supplying direct current thereto, the inverter being connected to the electroluminescent light source for supplying alternating current thereto; and the interior cushion comprises a cut-out for housing the battery and inverter therein. Thus in Hurwitz, again a special helmet is required for the illumination system, and as Hurwitz is more of a decorative than safety device, there is no particular teaching as to illumination brightness or outside environmental recognition of the illuminated helmet.
What is needed is a helmet lighting apparatus that is totally interchangeable or can be adapted to any helmet to accommodate a user's existing helmet, thus not requiring the user to purchase another new special helmet to accommodate an lighting system. Other desirable features of the helmet lighting apparatus would include easy mounting and dismounting, flexibility to adapt to numerous helmet sizes, shapes, and types, plus for the helmet lighting apparatus to have a small size and weight factor, long battery life, quick recharge ability, and most importantly a high external environment recognition factor both day and night from the helmet lighting to the motorist.